What Would You Do If You Were Wrongfully Convicted?

What would you do if you’ve been wrongfully convicted of murder, put on death row for 12 years twice, proven innocent, and still unable to get out until everything is sorted? Some would go crazy or not even make it. Anthony Graves went through all of this and rose above.

His new book Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement, and 12 Years on Death Row Failed To Kill My Soul talks about his journey in the justice system and his fight to keep hope alive.

“God-man, God. You know I put all that on God. I would be lying,” expressed Graves on making it through. “That’s just the art of the man in me. I didn’t understand why me, out all the people who’ve done wrong in the world.

He kept thinking, “There’s just got to be something bigger than this because this is not my life.”

He spent 12 years in solitary confinement with death sentences looming over his head. “It’s worse because it’s real. What you realize is that how important human contact is,” explained Graves.

When he got out the first thing he did was call his mother. “I called my mom because she had been on death row with me.”

Graves time in jail, turned him into a fighter for justice. He’d seen just about everything in jail.

“I tell you what I had seen so many people that were full of anger and it was eating them alive,” expressed Graves. “I didn’t want to be like that. That allowed me to kind of stay in tune with who I was and who I am. They couldn’t take my dignity.”

In light of Martin Luther King Jr. day, Graves was specially empowered to fight for his rights and the rights of others.

“Who am I to cower after so many people stood up for me to stand up for my rights,” explained Graves. “I’m going to channel all this anger and negativity into something constructive so that the whole world can learn from this.”